Band of the Week: Essex Chanel

The word accessible can mean different things to different listeners, but the goal to reach a larger portion of the population really can't be faulted. In fact, I would hope that it would be a pretty common goal. You want to express what is within, you want share your experience, so isn't it a natural goal to want that expression to felt by as many people as possible? Chicago's Travis Lee Wiggins of Essex Chanel has been a prolific member of the local independent music scene for years, but for his latest project he felt compelled to set out to create an album that could be "played in Starbucks". What is unique is that he turned to a very universal emotion for inspiration and theme as he sat down and crafted a rather large collection of love songs.

Love is Proximity will be released by Sweet Goodness Records on September 29th, and as Essex Chanel prepares for a Fall tour, Travis was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Orange Alert (OA): I think now is the perfect time for an album filled with love songs, but what prompted you to start down this romantic road?
Travis Lee Wiggins (TLW): For the most part, I’m pissed about how music is dominated by songs about romantic love. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense. There is so much to life, and to have every song about how someone left you, or broke your heart, or how you see someone you want to have sex with? It’s pretty silly. Especially how many of these songs always only focus on the infatuation stage of love, which is just one small part of it. Sometimes when I listen to the radio I can’t keep myself from LOL with some of the rhymes they’re coming up with. It’s like how visual arts are dominated by the naked female body.

BUT, at the same time, love IS one (of many) theme (s) of life. In my own creativity, themes are pretty diverse—from songs about losing your cell phone to Skinny Dippin’ to time to Count Chocula being my only friend—but I also can’t deny myself the freedom to write about this major theme. Each project I try to do something different, and for this one, I wanted to make an accessible mainstream album that could be played in Starbuck’s. I thought a love theme fitted perfectly with that, because everyone can relate to some version of love. It was designed for a large audience, and I had to restrict myself at times not to use weird little keyboard sounds and stuff not to make it wacky. Whereas my previous album Dancing At Weddings was more about making new sonic textures, this one was me showing that I can make and arrange something that fits in the canon of good taste. It was just as difficult—I arranged melodies with instruments I had never used before, and mixing this album—some songs had like 13 or more instruments, and I didn’t want to take any of them out, and they were all stepping on each other frequency-wise. Mixing this album, to get everything in there, and have everything be heard distinctly—it was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done.

OA: How difficult was it to trim the collection down from 42 to 10? What was that process like?
TLW: The Original list had 37 songs (You can see the actual sheets here and here).

I had them in order of how good I thought they were. I wanted a lot of material to choose from. Sometimes you can’t tell what’s going to be good or bad until you get those final recordings, so I wanted to over record a lot and have a lot to choose from. I’ve seen some average songs become really special because of a great arrangement. Since the skope of the project took years, as I started to get into it, I felt I had become a better songwriter and better musician. I added 5 songs to the project because I felt I needed a little more material, and since they were newer
songs, I felt they were stronger (4 out of the 5 new ones made it onto the album coincidentally).

It was pretty easy for me to narrow it down to about 20 songs. The last 10 were hard. I wanted something that was undeniably good. I keep talking about that—having an undeniably good album. There is a lot of bright spots on this album, but I feel it’s not quite there yet. I need a couple more albums and I feel I can get to that point. After narrowing it down to the 20 songs, I took out any song off the album that had parts that bothered me. I had my friends and musicians who worked on the album listen to it, and I had them write down which ones where their favorite,
and it really helped me get some perspective on which tracks were good. In the end, there are a lot of songs on the 3 Love is Proximity: Sessions collections that will release each 2 months after Love is Proximity that could easily swap out with some of the final songs. I tried to make the whole project more paletable by releasing them 10 or 11 at a time. 42 songs is just too much. There are so many albums I really enjoy, but they are just too long, and then you kind of wish they were shorter, and I tried to avoid that as much as possible but still at the same time give
the opportunity for someone who really likes the sound and style of this project to listen to more.

OA: How is the video for "Skinny Dipping" coming along?
TLW: The video is coming along spectacular! I’ve brought together a group of people that have put their blood, sweat, and tears into the project and really made it great. Sometimes as we’ve shot scenes for the video I look at everyone working their asses off and can’t believe I’m so lucky to have these people. I’ve tried to make it something that everyone can be proud of. Travis Abels has done a great job directing and storyboarding. Alejandro Marin has been behind the camera making everything look like art, and he’s also directed many of the scenes himself because Abels lives in L.A. DJ Reed’s costumes and props have been amazing--he’s going places. Shannon Bracken has been the glue in a lot of cases, helping mold ideas, scene location, & casting. Everyone really has been a Producer, sitting down and putting their ideas into it, and stepping in when needed with anything that needs to be done. There’s been a couple people and places like Johnny Evans who let us use his pool for a whole day and Friar Tuck’s
who let us use their bar to shoot at. A lot of great friends have shown up and been crew, acted, and been extras. I’m hoping to have it edited before the CD officially releases on September 29th or sometime after. There are a lot of production shots and stills on the Essex Chanel Facebook page.

OA: Sweet Goodness is your own label. How did you decide to start a label, and do you plan to release music from other bands?
TLW: For me, what a label is, and what it will be in the future, is taking care of the business & logistical side of music. I’m pretty much doing everything a record label would do and more, so I decided to create my own label, and kind of give these things a home. For Essex Chanel, besides doing everything creatively, I book tours and shows, send out thousands of emails and CDs for promotion, updating and bulding websites, putting together music videos--you name it. Nobody is going to hear your music if they can’t hear it or see it, so someone has to get it out into the world. And there’s nobody better to do it than yourself. I have complete control with everything I want to do, with the only limitation being money & time (which are always limitations) Behind every band is someone, a lot of time a lot of people doing these things. There’s a lot of education involved, and it’s intimidating. You have to learn how things work, and be
persistent as hell. A lot of musicians are turned off by it, because it’s a lot of work, and they believe a magic musical fairy is going to come down and wave her magic wand and then they will be stars.

An aspect of music that I really want to explore with Sweet Goodness are those bands or people who make fantastic music and who don’t tour or play shows. In the first days of Essex Chanel, I would spend all my time making music in my studio (Beware of Dog) and the rate I was able to advance musically was exponential because I wasn’t doing any shows or sending my stuff out to anyone (which takes loads of time). When you think of your
favorite songs, you hear the recordings of those songs, and with the advent of the internet, I don’t see a reason why someone can’t make great music in the studio without touring. It’s like, can you imagine asking a painter to create paintings right in front of you, or a writer to read his novel right in front of you? I’d love to fight for that musician who’s greatest talent is writing and making recordings. There’s no reason to take them out of the studio and put them in front of people when if they
were in the studio they would make something much more beautiful. I think with the internet there are avenues to discover those musicians. The avenues are going to become larger in the future.

OA: What are your thoughts on Chicago music in general?
TLW: Chicago is a great city with a huge music scene. I feel like there is opportunity here for anyone who wants to take the initiative. There are lots of great venues. At the same time it’s also a tough. You’re a small fish in a big sea with lots of other huge fishes that come through town. It’s not like in a small town, where all the musicians eventually know each other, and it’s tightly knit. You have to compete for slots at venues with huge touring bands, which is sometimes intimidating. But pretty much you can get a show, and you can get some press if you’re good enough and
persistent enough, and you aren’t stuck in a poe dunk town where all they listen to is bands covering CCR and Skynard. I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

OA: What's next for Essex Channel?
TLW: This fall/winter, I’ll be releasing albums by 3 of my other bands— The
Salts, Dolphins Swimming, and Personal Effects. The Salts album is done, and I have the music written for the other 2 projects. I’ll start working on a new Essex Chanel album this fall. Once again, I will try to write & record that undeniably great album. I have some ideas but it wouldn’t be easy to put into writing.

At some point in the next couple years, I’d like to record a Best Of album. After Love is Proximity is released, that’ll be 249 songs I’ve released with Essex Chanel. Some of those first albums had some bright spots, but I just wasn’t the musician or producer/mixer that I am now, and I’d like to record some of those songs better. So it’d be like a best of previously written and recorded songs but with new, better recordings.

Bonus Questions:
OA: If you could sit down to coffee with anyone (alive or dead) who would
it be?
TLW: I’d sit down with myself 30 years older. I’d hope that my older self
would say “don’t change a thing” but he’d probably end up saying something like “thanks for screwing everything up, jackass.”

OA: What was the last great book you have read?
TLW: I used to be an avid reader, but at some point along the way I started taking in less and making more. Instead of reading, I’d rather write a book (which I’ve written two, Bowling Alley Politics and Straight, No
Chaser – found at my website) I think all that reading, watching movies, listening to music, and looking at artwork I did earlier made me realize that barriers in creative fields are imaginary. Now I get
much more influence from my life instead of imitating other people’s work or trends. If you lead a rich life, with interesting people around you, you’ll have plenty to create about. So I really don’t read novels anymore. I really don’t even watch movies anymore. The reason why I’m able to create so much is because I’ve eliminated things like reading books, watching movies, and doing little things in my life. It’s a trade off.
Instead of manicuring my fingernails I write a song.

However, I did just start getting into one of my friend’s books. I’m all about preaching one thing and then negating that. Work with me sometime! Anyhow, he’s a Chicago author, named Patrick Waldron, just put out his first book called The Threshing Floor.

Two books I reference constantly are “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki and “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankel. If I could sum these up: living in the moment, and giving meaning to your life, no matter what it may be. The Suzuki book is especially good because it’s written lectures so you can read them a couple pages at a time. When rereading these two books I always find ideas that I haven’t thought of before, and
I read something in the margin I wrote 5 years ago that was the beginning many thoughts.

For more information on Essex Channel please visit their website.